LG V20 goes official with Android Nougat

LG has released the new V20 smartphone, the first device to ship with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box.

Last year’s V10 was one of the best phones of the year but got almost no attention from the big audience. The V20 aims to change that but uses quite similar feature set. The V20 is targeted for power users, audiophiles and spec monsters. It certainly isn’t for everyone with its bulky size and drastically customized Android experience.

The LG V20 packs a 5.7″ 1440p IPS LCD display and an additional 1040 x 160 display on top of the main one. The additional display can show shortcuts, options, memos and more. The SoC package is typical for a 2016 flagship with Snapdragon 820 CPU, Adreno 530 GPU and 4 GB of LPDDR4 RAM. The 64 GB internal storage is expendable via a microSD card. Android 7.0 Nougat has been heavily customized by LG.

The body of the V20 is made out of aluminium but still has a user replaceable 3200 mAh battery. The rear panel opens like a door when pushing the side button that looks like a camera shooter button. The V20 also has MIL-STD-810 shock certification. Charging is done via a USB Type-C and the fingerprint scanner is placed on the back.

The V20 has three cameras. Two rear cameras and a front facer with two modes, normal and wide angle. The rear cameras are a 16 megapixel normal camera and an 8 megapixel wide angle shooter. On the video side, LG is the first to adopt Qualcomm’s new video stabilization.

LG has focused on audio. In some markets the V20 will ship with Bang & Olufsen headphones and sound tuning. The V20 can record better audio, although the 24-bit / 48 kHz or 192 kHz doesn’t make any difference for most people, probably for no one.

The V20 will ship in three colors, black, silver and pink. There’s no information about pricing or availability.